


the iron gates of life

by yonderdarling



Series: Doctor/Missy Oneshots [10]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild Gore, Pregnancy, Psychic Abilities, Regeneration, Wanky formatting to invoke psychic abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 12:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11509155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonderdarling/pseuds/yonderdarling
Summary: Is she too ruthless? Yes. Has it saved her? Yes. Is it worth it? Without a second of doubt, yes. (This wasn't meant to happen).





	the iron gates of life

**Author's Note:**

> Turns out it's now physically impossible for me to write a fic w/o using a To His Coy Mistress reference. Uh, trigger warnings for miscarriage, because that's the closest it comes to. Set during and after the series 10 finale; spoilers for the Christmas special. Little bit experimentalish.

 

It's not a world-shaking revelation, when she figures it out. She's sitting quietly in the TARDIS in the fourth week of her provisional freedom, playing the piano when an ancient song comes to her. Numb, Missy plays it through before she lets the thought coalesce. 

And that's, that.

 

**(this won't change anything)**

 

The Doctor sleeps for three days, and Nardole takes charge, because the Master sneers and scorns the humans, and Missy carries on his wake. they send Bill to the barn, because the villagers open fire when they see it (her, her, _her, her_ , she is Bill, she is, she is and she always will be) and the Doctor sleeps, sleeps, sleeps, for three days.

Eventually Missy takes over as primary physician for the Doctor, because the town sawbones fumbles with his stethoscope and looks at him in horror. Two hearts. They chain the cloth-covered corpses of Cyberman prototypes up like scarecrows, but two hearts is one too many. On the first horrible, horrible night, where he glows gold twice and that makes her hearts stop, during the peaceful moments, she hums to him, the old lullaby she saved for her daughter. It's come back to her.

 

**(it's day two)**

 

"Why do you care for him so much?" the Master asks, chair rocking back on its hind legs, his boots on the windowsill, the bright green field with the daffodils outside.

"You care for him too," says Missy, winding the stethoscope around her fist. "We do. He's no longer arrhythmic, just worryingly slow," she adds, at the Master's look. "He's our ride, you imbecile. As if you think his TARDIS would let either of us pilot her."

"I've forced her before," the Master says.

"As have I. Not this close to a black hole, hundreds of terrified humans, thousands of determined Cybermen. You know how they swarm."

Missy checks the Doctor's temperature. He's warm. So's she. She tugs the blankets down around his waist, undoes the top button of his pyjama shirt. There is one good thing about the Master's constant presence. She holds out a hand, and he presses a damp cloth into it.

"So. He's our ride, and then we get out."

Silence, while outside there's the sound of the humans filling sandbags and digging trenches, sharpening sticks. Fat lot of good it'll do. Missy dabs the Doctor's forehead, his throat, his wrists and hands. He murmurs something.

"Tinpot out there," the Master says.

"Yes?"

"Told me, when she was human, eating all my favourite soups and taking the best spot in front of the telly. About the Vault."

"What about it?"

"He kept you there. Why?"

Missy takes the Doctor's wrist, wipes the rag along each of his long fingers. "It was that, or a permanent execution. He had some dumb idea that he could cure us."

"Cure us? How?"

"Mostly with his magic cock and a couple of brilliant monologues," Missy says, and sniggers, as the Master chuckles. "And I mean, will admit. Regular sex with someone else is a great stress reliever."

"Are you offering?"

"All the chains and whips have been pressed into the Land Army's service out there," says Missy, with a wink, even as the thought alone turns her stomach. "Help me turn him, would you?"

That takes a few minutes of tussling and mumbling, and Missy arranges the sheets again. The Master sets his jaw.

"We should find a room of our own," he says, and Missy nods.

"You go rustle one up, maybe check on Tingirl outside," she says. "I'll be right behind you."

 

**(day three rolls around)**

 

He wakes up. Nardole explains it all. The Doctor gets to it, staggering from room to room, giving feeble orders. He begs to see Bill, until Nardole explains. Then he runs out to the barn.

 

**(day four)**

 

The Doctor comes out of the barn, tired. Crippled. Saddened. His temperature goes back up, and the Master ends up being the one who clips him around the ear and sends him back to the sickroom.

"Fundamentally in self-service," he says with a rakish grin.

The Doctor snuffles in his sleep. Turns, reaches out and grabs at Missy's skirt.

"River," he murmurs, and pulls on the fabric. Missy tugs her skirt back. "Later," he says, and the Master makes a noise of disgust.

The Doctor paws at her skirt again; she takes his hand and puts it back on the mattress; catches a brief mental flash of - River, sure, smiling benevolently, what did he see in her, and then she sees her own face, smiling at herself over a piano -

_You were so happy that day._

And the Doctor sleeps again.

"Who's River?" the Master asks, straightening his own collar.

Missy pulls a look of disgust that she doesn't have to fake. "Believe me, you do not want to hear that story. It took him about four years to get through it before I was able to listen to the story without choking back vomit." She checks the Doctor's pulse.

"Ridiculous," says the Master. He glances about. "You know, the egg-bot found a bottle of scotch last night. I'll go take it from the forbidden cupboard that the lady of the house thinks we don't know about. Join me?"

"I'll ensure he doesn't die in his sleep, and then I'll be there," says Missy with a grin.

She waits until she can sense the Master's mind downstairs, the rush of endorphins as he cracks open a bottle of what basically amounts to boot polish, and swigs. Missy shifts the Doctor onto his back, checks his bandages, his temperature. She sits on the edge of the bed, cradles his head and trickles some sugared water - there's no medicine here fit for a Time Lord - into his mouth, rubs his throat until he swallows. The Doctor coughs, opens his eyes, coughs again.

"What - " he says, and seems to realise. "Missy. Missy, it's you."

She sets her jaw.

"How's Bill? Is she alright?" The Doctor stares up at her, desperate and old, and she thinks she feels pity. "Where is she?"

"She's still - out, and, changed, Doctor," she pauses. "I'm sorry."

The Doctor licks his lips, pulls a face. He nods. "Missy? What - "

"Just go to sleep, Doctor. You're falling apart at the seams."

The Doctor props himself up on his elbow, reaches out to her, cups her face with one shaking hand. He pulls her head down to his level, kisses her with his sticky, sugary mouth.

"And how are your seams?"

"Lie down," says Missy, and he does. "Get better." She strokes his hair back, tugs lightly at the strands. "My dear Doctor."

"That's not an answer," the Doctor says.

"No, no. It's not."

The Doctor falls asleep with his head in Missy's lap, and she plays with his hair until the dinner bell rings.

"I need to eat," she says, and he shifts with a groan. "I'll be back."

"I hope so," the Doctor mumbles.

 

**(day five, and he deserves to know)**

 

She gets him alone before breakfast, his hair all sleep rumpled, his eyes bagged, his face lined. She probably looks about the same. The Master snores. She forgot that she did that. The Doctor grabs her wrist, pulls her into one of the tiny window alcoves.

"Where is he?" he whispers.

"Why should I tell you?" she asks, and smirks, until she sees the flicker of panic across his face. Missy closes her eyes and concentrates, opens them. "Criticising Nardole's coding."

"Good," says the Doctor. "Missy."

He hasn't let go of her wrist. His hand is shaking.

"You hit him. But you - "

Missy raises the arm he's holding, and holds his wrist in her free hand. "This is very difficult for me," she says. "It's a black hole, and booster engines. I'm me. You're you, and he's the old me, and I'm - in the middle."

"Yes."

She licks her lips. "Doctor, he asked about the Vault."

"And?"

"I told him - it was a prison alone, not a reform centre."

"And?"

"Doctor."

He looks out the window, down at the children who are bringing in food supplies. Out at the barn.

"It doesn't change anything," Missy says, and she squeezes his wrist, turns it, looks at the veins running under the pale, paper-thin skin. "Doctor. Honey. Look at me."

He does, old green eyes. "What doesn't?"

She traces her fingers along his veins, toys with the cuff of his sleeve. The Doctor clears his throat.

"Missy? It's not like things could get much worse."

"Um," says Missy, and grips his wrist. "Open wide," she says. "This is private." His mind feels fuzzy around the edges; the effect of days and days of pain and denied regeneration and exhaustion. She probably feels around the same. _Come on now._

_What is it?_

_I'm pregnant._

His expression freezes, and walls are thrown up, pushing her out of his mind. He rips his wrist out of her grip. "Doctor. It doesn't change anything."

The Doctor exhales, leans back against the wall. Missy tips her head, focuses again. No, the Master is still outside. The Doctor reaches across and laces their fingers together.

_Ours, right? Foolish question._

Missy pulls a face. The Doctor doesn't laugh.  _Of course. Of course. Who else would it be? It's always been you._

_How long?_

 

She sends him an image of their tangled legs in a bed; the sense of his lips on her belly, how his hair felt twisting in her fingers. _Right after you invited me onto the TARDIS. With all those barriers gone - I couldn't get enough of you, you couldn't get enough of me._

The Doctor rubs the bridge of his nose, blinks hard. He coughs, unconsciously pushes her out of his mind again. She can feel the echoes of his shock and a new-old kind of pain, fresh and half-remembered. "And this doesn't change anything?"

"I haven't told him, and he hasn't realised."

"Are you sure?"

Missy forces herself to smirk, and knows the Doctor doesn't believe her. She takes his hand again.

"I think I would remember meeting myself even with distorted timelines," _if I was knocked up by the Doctor, barefoot and pregnant in his basement Sex Vault,_ she says, and the Doctor laughs, bitter.

"I didn't knock you up in the Sex Vault," he says, trying for humour, and Missy chuckles. "Um. How you feeling?"

"I - " Missy blows air out of the side of her mouth. "Feel like this isn't how this was meant to go, for us. But here we are. Doctor."

_Can I feel?_

"You can grab my tits, if that takes your fancy."

"No need to be crude," says the Doctor.

"Old habits," says Missy, and guides his hands to her middle. "You know, it's a zygote right now."

"Yes. A lump of cells."                                                                                        _I don't think either of us envisaged this when you went into the Vault._

 _There's nothing to envisage._ "It could be twins. Twin zygotes."

"We're not that good. Boy or a girl?" asks the Doctor. Then, 

_Missy, I -_

"Doctor," says Missy, and then she steps away from him, pushes his hands off her. "I'm going to the attic, I'll see you later."

 

 

 

 

**(day eight)**

 

The Master is asleep in a sunbeam in the house, and Missy might put him further under, and the Doctor is sitting outside under one of the apple trees.

"Did you bandage my hands?"

"Mhm," she says, standing awkwardly above him.

"I thought so. Humans don't do this sort of knot."

"I like the name Zalna," Missy says, staring at the blue, blue sky with its white fluffy clouds, the number faint above them, like a great bird of prey.

"Sounds like some kind of organ. I thought this wasn't going to change anything," the Doctor says. "Beatrice."

"Ugh, no. And it's not. It's just - "

"What we could have had," says the Doctor, picking at his bandages. "How's the hunt for the lifts going?"

"We've narrowed the search grid to the North and East quadrants, so we'll get there soon," Missy says.

"Five days?"

"Thereabouts," Missy says. 

"I don't know if we have five days."

"Stop picking at that."

"Sorry," says the Doctor, and begins to pull up the grass instead. "Will you sit with me? Please?"

She does, lowering herself to the grass. It's much cooler in the shade, dewy. Missy sighs.

"If you are - with me," the Doctor says. "And I'm 97% sure that you are. Thank you."

Missy nods. "To be honest - "

"Yes?"

"This is still preferable to the Vault. That was purgatory. This is hell. At least there's a sense of - the definite, with hell."

"Hell with Clydesdales," the Doctor says, and they both smile.

Missy reaches across, stops him from shredding the grass. She clasps his hands, and his fingers twitch.

"You feel warm."

_Pregnant Time Ladies do that. Don't you remember?_

He swallows, runs his fingertips along her wrists. "Please don't talk about that," he says, and she shakes her head. "Sorry. I need to be strong for these people. You need to be strong. Unless - Missy?"

Missy shifts so they're sitting hip to hip.

"How's the Master?"

"Dreaming of the War," Missy says. "One of the good days."

"There were no good days in the war."

"For us, there was," says Missy, knocking their shoes together. "My friend."

_Would it - would he change his mind, if you reminded him of, what your - of your family. Of your daughter._

"No."

The Doctor nods, looks up at the sky. "I know you don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to check."

"Understandable."

"May I?"

That doesn't need an explanation. Missy takes the Doctor's hand again, plants it on her stomach. There's a slight breeze, and the leaves rustle above them. Missy looks up at the sim-sunlight filtering through, green and blue, white and bright. The Doctor strokes her middle softly.

"What are you feeling?" the Doctor asks.

"As per always, the pressing need to find a way to survive," she says. "And - yes."

"Yes, what?"

Missy tilts her head until it's resting on his shoulder, and she hums. "I've got it."

"Yes."

"Can't tell you too early, it's bad luck."

"I think - we've had a thousand-year run of bad luck, and it's only about to get harder," the Doctor says. "I could use some good news."

"Verity," Missy says, and the Doctor stiffens beside her. "I want to say it out loud. No use arguing, my dear, my mind's made up. And my wife named the last one. It's my turn."

He's very still.

"If you say anything, I'll probably cry, by the way," Missy says. "Just so you know. But Verity. Of your House, then she'll get your jewellery." She cranes her neck, strains her eyes to see the Doctor's face. His eyes are closed, eyelids flickering. "We'll get to the top floor, right, take your TARDIS. Free-range family. We can try again. You'll keep me on the straight and narrow, the meandering and pure, except for the filthy, dirty, kinky sex we'll have when Nardole babysits."

"Nardole is coming?" the Doctor's voice is thick.

"We both hate cooking," Missy says. "And you know how I feel about cleaning."

"You love it."

"Yes, I need someone else to judge their poor efforts. Nardole will be good for that. He sweeps things under the rug. Literally, I saw him in the Vault. Bill can come too. She'll be on security detail."

The Doctor turns so his forehead is pressing into her shoulder. Missy scrubs the heel of her hand across her cheek.

"I have to go," she says. "I'm waking up."

"Can I trust you?"

"I hope so," Missy says. "I - "

The Doctor lifts his head, kisses her softly on the cheek. He exhales against her skin, presses kisses across to her ear, down her neck. He tucks his face into the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

"Are you smelling me?" Missy asks.

"You smell good," he says. "Like familiarity. Like home."

"This won't change anything," Missy says. "Remember that. Time is bleeding, this close to a black hole. I'm remembering things I shouldn't be."

"No," he whispers, and kisses her again.

_Can't you feel it? This wasn't supposed to happen._

He's silent, and then he rests his head against the trunk of the tree, looks out across the fields.

Missy stands, and leaves him there, and ignores the stares from the working humans as she passes them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**(day fifteen, hours after disaster)**

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is she too ruthless? Yes. Has it saved her? Yes. Is it worth it?

Without a second of doubt, yes.

She is dead for four hours, nineteen minutes and forty-one seconds; she dies in the cool, tangled undergrowth of the fake forest, and wakes up in a wasteland of ash and ruins. Missy coughs, sits up, howls in agony.

She's glowing, faintly, trembling. It's not a regeneration so much as a renewal. Too much damage to -

She pitches to one side and throws up in the dirt. Missy spits, throws ash over the top. She tries to swear, and her throat feels like it's gripped with fire and pain. Damage to the hyoid, then. She'll need a TARDIS to fix the internal damage, and then she'll need a zero room to regenerate in, and the only TARDIS within reach is -

Missy closes her eyes. The Master is long-gone by now, and she can't sense the Doctor. She rolls away from her sick, finds an intact tree-branch and uses it to help her stand.

There's blood between her legs, soaking her skirt, awful and thick hot and sticky and tacky on her thighs. Missy sets her jaw as tears dribble down her face. Begins to walk.

 

                                              It takes her four hours to find a Cyberman with its chest split open, so she can access a receiver, and another three before she can tune it to the right frequency. All she wants in the universe now is water, and a way to splint her broken wrist, and she drops to the ground when she finds a loose Cyberman arm, the plating cracked from some kind of explosion. She tears up her bloody petticoat for strapping and manages to fashion a crude splint out of the ruins of the armour. She uses some of the rags to dab at the mess between her thighs, grimacing.

Still. Self-preservation. The rags go in her pockets. No need to leave Gallifreyan DNA lying around in such handy packaging.

 

 

 

Something cool on her wrist. Cool on her lips. Cool on her broken bones and her tired voice. On her wrist again.

Missy looks. It's clear. It's - water.

"What?" Missy murmurs, as it forms into a sphere in front of her, growing, growing, glistening. It looks like water in zero-gravity, but the artificial forces here are more than intact.

She remembers the Doctor's voice through the Vault doors early on, whispering at her even as she screamed to be let out and bashed at the doors until her fingers broke. A pilot-girl, and a mysterious puddle.

The water reaches out with a strange tendril, touches her face. It's warm. Missy closes her eyes.

 

 

 

 

**(day sixteen)**

 

She wakes up on the TARDIS, knows it without opening her eyes, knows it from the smell in the air and the internal temperature and the air pressure and the creaks and groans in the old machine that just won't go away, no matter how many times she recalibrates the vent system. She's clean, and dry, and can hear a heart monitor going. It takes another moment for her to realise it's her own.

Footsteps. Someone squeezes her hand, keeps going. Something prickles at her eyes, and she opens them. 

The last person she expects to see in the universe is there. Well, there's two of him.

"I didn't really believe you until now," he says. "But the eyes - the eyes are exactly the same. Uncanny, really. I would know those eyes anywhere."

Missy never knew this face, at least, not this old, but she knows it like she knows the turning of the universe and the cold of space and the heat of Gallifrey's twin suns, the smell of the red grass on a warm summer's day. Tongue thick in her mouth, throat closed up, she tries to say the name of a boy who's two-thousand years dead and gone.

_Hi, Theta. There you are._

"She's awake?" comes the latest Doctor, her Doctor, really, and footsteps. The youngest Doctor steps out of the way, and the oldest Doctor moves into her line of sight, smiles with relief. "Hi," he says. "Welcome back. Don't try to talk, your hyoid is still being repaired."

She lifts her good arm, holds his wrist. Asks, pressing the question into his skin.

"You appeared in the snow. However you did it, you aimed for the wrong Doctor. How did you do it?"

 _Water_.

"You're thirsty? Hang on."

_The memories are fading fast._

The Doctor dampens her cracked lips with a cloth, and dribbles a little water into her mouth. Her tongue flickers up, and it's pure and cold, the best she's ever had.

"I washed you. Washed it all away," he says. "I saw, what you did. That was brutal, but it was clever."

_It was necessary. It wasn't meant to happen._

_I wouldn't have minded it if it had. Right?_

_We wouldn't have -_

Missy blinks away sudden tears, and he wipes her eyes with his thumb.

"You're alive," he says. "You need to regenerate. You can now. Missy. You're dying." Then, he moves his hand so their fingers are pressed together.

 _Yes_ , she replies. _You are too_.

 _Yes_.

"Well, enough of this chit-chat," says the First Doctor. "Shall we wheel you to the zero room, Koschei, or do you think you can stand, hm?"

_You always did ruin moments._

The Doctor kisses her forehead.

_I don't want to see him. It's like watching a baby learn to walk. You're not even five hundred by this point._

_Please don't judge me by him. I was so innocent._

_I always loved you for that._

He laughs gently against her forehead, kisses her again. "Do you want to say - "

Missy raises her hand, reaches out for the other Doctor, who clasps her fingers gently. She squeezes, and he squeezes back. Missy finds herself smiling at him. He's so young. So much ahead of him.

"A goodbye, at last. And good luck," says the First Doctor, patting her wrist with his free hand. "Apparently I'll be seeing you soon?"

"Oh, well," says the Doctor, her Doctor, stick insect cheekbones, magician Doctor. "It's a long story. Come on, Missy."

It's lucky the gurney is self-propelling, because she doesn't think the Doctor has the physical strength to push it. She watches the corridor roof go by, feels the steady pressure of the Doctor's hand on her shoulder. The gurney slows, stops outside the zero room. The Doctor opens the door, pauses. Missy tugs on his grubby shirt.

"I'm going to miss these versions," he says, and takes her hand. "I'll miss you."

 _Yes_.

"I'll see you soon. Very soon. Both of us, fresh out of the packet. Apologies for the inevitable post-regeneration shenanigans that you're going to see me perform."

 _Yes_.

"If you're taking requests, I do like you being short," the Doctor says, and Missy laughs, which turns into a groan of pain when her chest tightens. Broken ribs. "Sh, sh, sorry."

_I like being short too. And I like you brunette._

"I'll do my best."

_Ah, dear._

"Hey, that's - "

A flare of pain, between her hearts. Missy tries to stand, and the Doctor is there, helping her up, pushing her along as she winces and cries out, and he guides her arm around his shoulders, half-carries, half-drags her into the zero room, sits her on one of the featureless blocks in its centre. He pauses.

"Ready?"

She inclines her head. Takes his wrist, one last time. Sends that feeling of warmth, of red grass whipping at her arms and hands as she runs through it, the suns like hot honey on her back and neck and head. A voice calling after her, laughing, high-pitched and joyful. The Doctor smooths her hair back - he loves her hair, this time - and steps away, back through the door, which slides shut behind him.

Missy looks at her fingers, and sees gold beginning to curl out of them. She takes a deep, painful breath, and closes her eyes.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it - feedback is always appreciated.


End file.
